When filming is carried out with hand-held video cameras and the like, it is inevitable that it will be subject to shaking in the three axes of three-dimensional space. For this reason, the use of supports which serve to improve filming quality by minimising such shaking is strongly recommended. Of these supports, those having a tripod configuration offer the best guarantees of image stability. Tripod supports, however, have the unavoidable disadvantage of being very bulky and heavy whereas the bulk and weight are much more modest in so-called monopod supports in which the filming apparatus is mounted at the top of a rod which is generally telescopically adjustable and the opposite end of which rests on the ground. The angles of oscillation in the vertical plane containing the axis of the rod and about the optical axis of the objective are minimised because they are related to the fulcrum of the oscillation which is in this case at a distance from the apparatus, at the point where the monopod rests on the ground (base). This allows a drastic reduction in the oscillation about the corresponding axes.
On the other hand, the oscillating movement in the so-called panoramic axis, about the axis of the rod of the monopod, remains substantially unchanged. The annoying shaking discussed above therefore persists in this movement. For this reason, monopod supports have hitherto been used to some extent in the field of still photography but they have not enjoyed as much success in the field of video filming.